Kim Rhode, an El Monte native, nabs 2nd US gold at Olympics

July 29, 2012 12:00:00 AM PDT

LONDON --

A Southern California woman captured the country's second gold medal in this summer's Olympic games.

After taking home the gold in women's skeet, El Monte native Kim Rhode became the first U.S. woman to win a medal in an individual sport in five consecutive Olympic games. She is one of only two U.S. women to medal in five straight Olympic games, regardless of sport.

Meantime, troops, teachers and students in London will be given tickets to fill empty seats at Olympic venues. Saturday, there was widespread criticism after blocks of prime seats went unused. Most of them belong to Olympic and national team officials.

Organizers say it's normal for officials to be too busy to attend events in the opening days. Organizers have long promised to fill venues. Empty seats were a big problem at the 2008 Beijing games as well.

There may have been empty seats at the games, but people across the pond were glued to their televisions not missing a beat.

Preliminary estimates show that Saturday night's NBC telecast scored the highest ratings for the first evening of an Olympics competition outside of the United States. The Nielsen company said Sunday that its measurement of the nation's largest cities showed ratings for the Olympics telecast were up 8 percent over opening night in Beijing four years ago.

NBC was the target of many Twitter complaints on Saturday for not telecasting the marquee men's swimming competition live, instead showing it on tape delay in prime-time. But prime-time ratings are the report card that the company cares about the most and, thus far, viewers are responding negatively to the strategy. Disappointed Twitter users have even set up their own hashtag on Twitter: #NBCfail.